Pleat is genuine contender

David Pleat's appointment as caretaker manager for the third time in his career presents the Tottenham board with another dilemma of their own making. If Pleat steadies the ship and has a good Carling Cup run, does he become a contender to replace Glenn Hoddle in his own right?

If not, will the manager being brought in demand a direct relationship with the board or do the club insist that any candidate must observe the current structure, which includes Pleat as director of football? To do so might alienate the leading candidates.

It is not a straightforward process and the former Luton and Spurs manager, on a salary of £325,000 including benefits, has a clear vested interest in its outcome.

Much has been made of the ill-defined nature of Pleat's role at Spurs.

It is not run along the traditional European lines, where the first-team coach coaches and decides jointly with the director of football the club's transfer targets.

Sir Alan Sugar brought Pleat in because he wanted a football man on the board. Recognising his own lack of expertise in the field, Sugar wanted a professional off whom he could bounce ideas and take counsel. The intention was to establish a clear reporting line from manager to director to chairman on football matters.

But it did not quite work out that way. Pleat's relationship with George Graham was cool at best, with the former Arsenal boss using Pleat as a buffer between himself and Sugar, with whom he had fallen out.

Under Hoddle, relations between manager and director hardly improved. In fact, despite assertions from the club to the contrary, it was one of the worst kept secrets in football that the two did not get on.

This did not appear to worry the current Spurs board. They are relatively new to football and are somewhat naive when it comes to its nuances and personalities. Having inherited a structure from Sugar, they relied on Pleat for advice on footballing matters.

Yet there were several clashes between manager and director and the unhealthy relationship is believed by many to be responsible for an acrid atmosphere at the club's training ground.

The two appeared to disagree about Robbie Keane, a striker Pleat insisted was at the top of their wanted list just days after Hoddle had told the media they were not interested in signing him. Later, sources close to Hoddle confided he had gone public to "stop Pleat from interfering". Ironically, Keane turned out to be the club's best signing under Hoddle.

Worse was to follow during the embarrassing Tim Sherwood saga. The former captain, given the cold shoulder treatment for speaking out about Hoddle's management and coaching ability, was attempting to get back into the first-team squad. When Sherwood took his agent, Eric Hall, along to talk to Pleat about the situation the pair were astonished to learn that the director of football believed it was now a 'personal thing' on behalf of the manager and that Sherwood would never play for the club again while he remained in charge.

Of course, Sherwood never did. Hoddle had said as much in a board meeting but then publicly denied there was a rift. The uproar that followed Pleat's remarks clearly demonstrated the mutual dislike which existed between manager and director of football even though both men, urged by the club, talked down the conflict.

Despite all this, Pleat voted to keep Hoddle at a crucial board meeting last May, when the manager only survived thanks to Pleat's support and the casting vote of chairman Daniel Levy. Pleat's backing was based partly on his loyalty to the chairman's view and partly, one assumes, on self-interest: a new manager might threaten his own position. But if Hoddle stayed and later failed, as has transpired, Pleat was ideally placed to step in and/or act as kingmaker for a new boss.

It was against this backdrop that Spurs strengthened their squad this summer. While high-earners such as Teddy Sheringham-were off-loaded, Pleat's advice to get rid of two Hoddle signings - Goran Bunjevcevic and Milenko Acimovic - was ignored.

Both players are woefully inadequate in Premiership terms but the board decided that to remove them would undermine the manager when neither player was good enough to be a firstteam regular.

Levy, backed by Pleat, insisted target players needed to be young, quick and with a potential sell-on value. Hence moves for the ageing Emmanuel Petit and Kevin Phillips were ditched, much to Hoddle's dismay.

It was Pleat who also warned Hoddle about the lack of defensive midfield cover when the manager was about to sign striker Freddie Kanoute from West Ham. Again, Hoddle ignored his advice to plug the gaps left by the controversial departures of Sherwood and Steffen Freund, only to be questioned later about this policy by his chairman.

Now Hoddle has gone and Pleat will be intimately involved in the search for a new manager, along with Levy and new Tottenham plc executive director Paul Kemsley.

The latter, a millionaire north London property dealer and close friend of Jamie Redknapp, is becoming an increasing influence at White Hart Lane and appears to be taking the role formerly handled by vice-chairman David Buchler, who, with Levy, led the chase for Hoddle.

Spurs observers suggest that, just as there was a split over Hoddle in May, there may not now be unanimity on the board about either a successor or Pleat's long-term future. As ever at White Hart Lane, nothing is straightforward.